by Jill Barnett
He watched her smile. He almost laughed to himself, knowing what that smile of hers did to him. Part of him was glad she didn’t understand the power she had with that one smile.
But after a moment, Hank’s gaze caught hers. There was a long tense pause while they stared at each other. Her smile faded.
He knew. She knew.
Nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter that the lagoon shone a lustery black in the night. It didn’t matter that a breath of night wind made the palm fronds whisper. Nothing mattered then but what they felt for each other—something there was no word for. Emotion so strong it had no name.
They turned and walked in silence along the sand where the moonlight turned their steps silver. The waves were breaking with a bolder sound, a boom, a rush, and foamy whoosh. And as those waves broke, thousands of red sea creatures glimmered in the subtle light, glowed as if there were fire in the waves.
Hank just held her soft hand as they walked, with nothing around them but the wind and the sea and a wealth of emotion and awareness of the other.
His senses were keen. With each breath of the trades, her scent came alive. It was suddenly all around him, that female smell that made him damn glad he was a man.
He could sense it above the brine of the sea, above the earthy smell of the sand and the shore. He was aware only of her. Just Smitty.
Her touch. Her profile. Her walk. The way the ball gown rustled against the side of his leg.
He stopped and smiled down at her, then pulled her to him. He threaded his fingers through hers and held their hands up as he slid his other arm around her lower back.
And they danced in the moonlight. On silver sand and cool sighs of wind. The music was all around them—the rumbling reef, the wash of the waves, the rustle of palm fronds in the nearby coconut trees, the rapid and syncopated beat of their hearts.
They sensed when to stop, and both did at the same moment. Whether it was in their eyes or in their minds, they knew. Almost as if at that moment in time they were one.
Hank looked over her head and stared out at the sea for a moment that he thought he needed. It was a little confusing, all this . . . stuff in his gut that he’d never experienced. It wasn’t an easy thing for him to accept, either.
He looked at her, and his doubts washed away.
He touched her cheek, then let his hand drift to her neck. Her pulse pounded like the surf. He leaned down and kissed her gently in a way he’d never kissed a woman before. He wasn’t taking anything. Just touching his mouth to hers. He pulled back and watched her.
Her breathing was husky and abrupt, like his. In her eyes he saw the same raw emotion that was eating at him. A need that was more than something physical.
It was hard to tell who made the first move. He reached out for her and she for him. He lowered his head. She stood on tiptoe. Then she was in his arms, her body, that soft, female body was against his.
He kissed her again. Kissed her as he’d never kissed a woman. Kissed her as if she mattered. Because she did.
He never gave Margaret a chance to say anything. She didn’t have to ask him for what she wanted. And she hadn’t known the words to ask anyway. But he did the most romantic thing he could have—he picked her up in his arms and carried her down the beach.
She felt his arms tighten around her, and he stepped over the rock to that isolated spot of beach where he’d lost himself in bottles of liquor. A small plot of beach where rocks and sea made it private.
He dropped her legs so he held her along his tall body with one hand cupping her head and the other hand on her bottom. Then his mouth covered hers so swiftly he stole her breath.
She slid her arms up over his shoulders and hung on for all it was worth.
And it was worth everything.
His tongue brushed her lips, then he was in her mouth, a hard and seeking kiss that demanded that she give in return. Her hands moved up his neck and onto his head. Her fingers dug through his black hair and clenched it in tight fistfuls.
He moaned her name over and over. She opened her mouth wider, sucked on his tongue and his lips the way he’d sucked on hers. She kissed him in ways she’d never been kissed, had never known existed. With him her motions were instinctive.
His hand kneaded her bottom, first one side, then the other. He pressed her hard against him and groaned when she dropped a hand to the small of his back and slid her fingers into the waistband of his pants. His hips began to move in a slow rhythm that she soon picked up. She moved with him. Circling slowly in a new dance.
Their motions grew hot and hungry, unguarded and free. He tore at the buttons on her dress and drew his tongue and mouth along her neck, over to her throat, and lower as he pulled the fabric down under one breast. His head nudged her back over his arm, exposing her, and his mouth closed over her breast, sucking as much of it into his mouth as he could.
She moaned and grabbed his head again with both hands, holding him there. His hips still rotated against hers, and he pulled one of her knees up and tucked it against his waist so he could rub harder against her.
Then he changed arms and breast, and his right hand drifted down to her other leg and slid around the back of her thigh. He pulled that leg high around his hips, and he moaned something low and earthy about what he would do to her, where, and for how long.
Somewhere in the back recesses of her conscious mind, she hoped he kept those promises. And she told him so.
He growled low in his throat and jerked her dress off so fast she was chilled from the air. He tore off his coat and dropped it in the sand. He pulled off the rest of her clothing, then ripped off his shirt and undid his belt and pants.
He pulled her against him, then swung her up into his arms again and knelt, laying her in the silver sand.
She stared up at him kneeling beside her, cast in a sliver of moonlight that sliced through a lonely cloud. He was long, lean, hard, tanned, and as rugged as his manner. There was something elemental about him, an earthiness that sparked a side of her she hadn’t known existed.
He moved then to kneel at her feet, and he slowly massaged them, moving upward to her ankles. He slowly spread her legs.
“God, these legs . . . ” he rasped in a throaty whisper. His hands moved up her ankles, calves, rubbing them and stroking them, only inches at a time. It took forever for him to get to her knees, where he lowered his head and kissed the insides, then dragged his tongue down her calves and sucked on her ankles, only to move up and do the same thing all over again.
He kissed her legs for long eternal minutes, driving her mad with his fingertips, nails, lips, and tongue. Then he lifted her knees, settling her feet flat on the sand. He slowly moved down the inside of one thigh with his tongue, licking, only to stop before he hit the juncture of her legs.
Then he moved the other side and did the very same thing, only more slowly and more thoroughly, until her hips lifted up and she was calling his name over and over.
“Open your eyes, sweetheart. Look at me.” He knelt back on his heels.
She opened her eyes, seeing at first only a mist of his silhouette.
He reached out with one finger and drew it over her there, where she craved his touch. He did it slowly. Then he stopped, and she moaned.
“Watch me,” he said.
He tasted his finger and then did the same thing again. Over and over until she finally grabbed his hand and pressed it to her because she couldn’t take it anymore.
He pressed a thick, rugged finger into her and slowly moved it in and out, his knuckle doing things that made her forget everything but the center of her body. He added another finger, stretching her wider and putting pressure so deep within her that she stopped breathing for an instant.
He spent long minutes thrusting his fingers in and out of her, and her hips rose higher and her knees began to shake uncontrollably. He stopped and slid his hands under her bottom, moving her knees over his wide shoulders, and he lifted her to his mouth.
&nbs
p; The world disappeared, just faded into nothing but the hot touch of his mouth. He didn’t kiss her there with the same hungry motions as he kissed her mouth. He traced her lightly with his tongue, then rubbed his lips against the core of her before he moved up and drew a small, sensitive point into his mouth and sucked.
And she throbbed hard over and over. He didn’t stop.
“Again,” he said against her. “Again, sweetheart. Do it again.” And he buried his tongue so deeply inside of her that she did do it again.
She was crying when her body quieted. He lay her back down and rested his cheek on her belly. When her breath returned and her heart stopped pounding in her head and ears, he lifted his head, his look so hot her breath caught.
And he started licking her again. Everywhere.
Everything all over again. Only just before she would fall over the edge, just before her knees shook too hard, he would stop suddenly, calming her with his hands on her legs, soothing her until it passed. Then he built it again, only higher. Each time, he brought her close to that point again, but then he stopped.
And he talked to her, telling her he was teaching her the power of her body, showing her how men and women mated—Hank didn’t use that word.
He crawled between her legs and lifted them and wrapped them around his hips. He pressed against her with his length, then tilted his hips and slowly inched inside, pushing her wider than his fingers could or had, filling her more deeply than he could with his tongue.
“Oh, baby. This is heaven. Hang on. Hang on tight, sweetheart.”
Then he covered her mouth with his and thrust home. Pain shot through her belly and down her legs. She stiffened and moaned at its sharpness. She dug her nails into his bottom.
He swore crudely, then buried his head on her neck. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Just lay still. Don’t move.” He gripped her bottom and refused to let her back away. “Easy. Just lay still for a minute.”
She did. And the burning slowly faded.
He gave her time, then said, “Look at me, Smitty.” And she opened her eyes.
“You okay?”
She nodded, even though she could feel tears streaming down her temples and into her hairline. “I’m going to move a little. Real easy.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, and gripped his bottom even tighter. “Okay,” she whispered, holding her breath.
He gave a bark of wry laughter and dropped his head on her neck. “Damn . . . I hope it’s not going to be that bad.”
Her eyes shot open. “Don’t you know?”
“I’m not a woman, Smitty.”
She blinked, then frowned up at him. “You mean to tell me it doesn’t hurt you?”
He shook his head.
“God is a man,” she muttered.
He laughed so hard his arms gave out and he lay on her.
She watched his shoulders shake. “It’s not that funny, Hank.”
He lifted his head off of her and looked down, still grinning. He shook his head. “I never knew I could laugh and screw at the same time.”
“How perfectly romantic.”
He eyed her the same way he had eyed the genie bottle. “You’re mad as hell, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Sex is not fair and equal.”
“But it’s a helluva lot of fun, sweetheart.”
“That’s because you’re the man.”
“Give me a little while and I’ll make you eat those words, Smitty.”
“How?”
“Did you like what I did to you? This?” he asked, then slowly dragged his tongue across her chest, watching her the whole time.
Her breath caught, and she whispered, “Yes.”
He reached down and drew a finger around where they were joined. “Here?”
“Yes.”
“If you don’t like what I’m going to do, then from now on we’ll just do that.”
Now that was an offer that had promise.
The only thing that bothered her was his expression. His face wore the same look he’d had when he was playing poker with Theodore, a look that said he held the winning hand. “Agreed?”
She nodded.
“Relax, Smitty. I’ll go slow and easy until you’re ready.” He shifted slowly, pulling back. “Does that hurt?”
“No. There’s just pressure.”
He moved again slowly and carefully for long minutes, until she realized that he was right. She felt no pain, just the fullness and size of him as he moved. He seemed willing to take forever, to move slowly, then build, stooping his shoulders and freezing if she flinched or made a sound.
He looked at her. “You okay?”
She nodded, then slid her hands over his back, liking the way his muscles contracted when he thrust into her. She slid her hand to his bottom and felt each of his motions by the tightening of his muscles there.
Before long she realized he was moving too slowly.
And she told him so.
He groaned a “Thank God” and picked up speed. She moved with him, because she had to, because it felt so good.
They rotated their hips in counterpoint. Then he was moving harder and swifter, his lower body thrusting hard and strong. He had to grip her hips to keep her from sliding away from him.
She could hear the waves and how they pounded the shore, and she felt a rush like that of the sea, a surge that was deep inside of her.
There was no pain, nothing but that thrill—the same one that had happened when he loved her with his mouth. Only with this, the friction was coming swifter and deeper and stronger, as if everything began and ended with his body.
“Come baby, come on . . .”
And he thrust three rapid and deep thrusts that sent her flying over the edge.
He yelled a graphic and earthy phrase of thanks, then threw his head back, his neck straining, his teeth gritted, and he buried himself so deeply inside of her that she blacked out for a moment even as her body gripped him again and again. When she came down from a place so high and free and hot, she could barely catch a breath.
He whispered her name before he started again, thrusting faster than ever. Suddenly he pulled out of her, shifted his lower body back, dropped his hips between her splayed thighs, and groaned deep and dark, his body releasing something wet and warm near her knees.
They lay there, bodies molded by sweat and exhaustion, heartbeats rapid and together. She was acutely aware of the feel of him, the hair on his chest and belly crinkled against her skin, the soft hairs beneath her flat palms as she ran them slowly over the small of his back. His weight, his breath on her neck, his hand still beneath her bottom.
Long minutes later, he moved up her body again and dragged his mouth along her neck and shoulder, tasting her. He lifted his head and gave her a cocky look. “You still think sex isn’t fair and equal?”
“I’m not certain.”
“What the hell do you mean you’re not certain?” She tried to look perfectly serious when she said, “I have to think about it.”
His eyes narrowed, and she laughed then. But before she could think about anything, he shifted back on his knees, slid his hands under her, and flung her legs over his shoulders. “Here, sweetheart,” he said against her, “think about this.”
Chapter 30
Margaret sat in the sand, her back against Hank’s chest, and they watched the moon go down on a brooding purple night sky. The trade wind brushed her face. She hugged her knees to her chest, dug her toes in sand cooled by the night.
It was odd how she seemed to feel each thing so keenly. The touch of the wind, the coolness of the sand, the warmth of Hank’s body and his breath near her ear and neck. It was as if her skin and her senses had come alive in the last few hours. As if she were a new person. She thought about what had passed between them and wondered if perhaps she was a different Margaret Smith. She smiled. Maybe she was Smitty.
She sighed like the wind, because it felt go
od just sitting there, as if she and Hank had their own private world. There was a rich sense of peace and kinship about them, something that made it seem as if for that one moment in time no one else existed but the two of them.
Long minutes passed in silence that was like a comfortable old friend, different from the long, tense silences that had been between them before—when they fought so hard to deny what was happening.
She waited awhile, watched the sky turn darker as the silky moon disappeared on the horizon. Then she tilted her head back against his bare shoulder. “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Tell me about your life.”
He laughed that cynical laugh he had. “We don’t have that long, sweetheart.”
“Then just tell me about the important things.” He shifted, and she could feel him look down at her. “Like what?”
“Like where you learned to dance.”
He laughed. “I had lessons.”
He was teasing her. She shook her head, then waited. When he didn’t say anything else, she grabbed a handful of sand and let it spill through her fingers. “Tell me about baseball.”
His arms tightened around her, then fell away for a moment. She hadn’t fooled him.
He shifted around her until he was sitting beside her, his legs drawn up and his arms resting on them. He didn’t look at her. “Baseball’s a game. You play with a bat, a glove, and a ball.”
She reached out and touched his arm. “Don’t. Please. I saw you in the jungle. Hitting those nuts over the trees. Theodore told me you wouldn’t teach him how to play. Why? What happened?”
He picked up a small rock made smooth by the constant motion of the sea. He tossed it lightly as if it were a ball. She knew now that she’d seen him do this before, never knowing it was not just a habit, but a clue to part of his past.
He turned. “How much do you want to know?”
“Enough to understand.”
He waited, then said, “Sometimes, sweetheart, I’m not certain I understand.”
“Please, Hank.”
He stared at the rock, rubbing it with his thumb. “I left Pittsburgh when I was fifteen. It was leave or go to jail.” He looked not at her, but at the sea. “I’d been caught stealing on the streets. The cop that caught me was tired of throwing my butt in jail and told me to get the hell outta town or he’d lock me up and see that I never got out.